<< Go Back

Fade to White

By Tara Ross

Order Now!

CHAPTER ONE

The first time it happens, I feel as if I am dying. My body and mind are suffocating. I am alone with no hope of escape.
It starts with a story in the newspaper.
I’m on autopilot and half-asleep as I sit at the breakfast table and pick at my maple oatmeal. Dad slouches across from me, unshowered and still wearing his housecoat. He drags his fingers through his mat of salt-and-pepper hair and rubs his unshaven face.
At his end of our well-loved oak table, he has neatly stacked piles of newspaper sections. I sift through the only messy heap, the outcasts, and find the section of Ridgefield Local News. He glances up from the Toronto Financials and shoots me some serious cut-eye.
Eyebrows raised, I stare back. “What?”
“If you’re going to read the paper, don’t waste your time on that fluff,” he emphasizes fluff like a curse word.
Somebody’s grizzly today. Staying up most of the night to watch TV likely didn’t help.
Against my better judgment, I poke the bear. “Yeah, because waking up to stock market figures would be a much more entertaining start to my day.” I spoon in a mouthful of over-sweetened mush and hide a smirk by burying my face in the local news.
Dad gives his paper an irritated shake. “Some people are very interested in this year’s financial forecast. Like your brother.” He just had to bring the newly coated golden child into the debate. “Tom probably has to write a paper about it. No wait. It’s November. He’s just sucking up for another tuition infusion.”
Dad’s pottery mug drops like a coffee-spilling gavel. Note to self:
do not taunt the grizzly before his morning coffee.
Dang it, Thea, why does your mouth always work faster than your brain?
Chastising myself has become a habit lately, as though I’m priming myself for what I deserve to be told out loud. Nevertheless, I muster my best I’m-an-idiot-but-still-your-little-princess expression.
Unlike some teenagers, I’m all too aware of my neurological gaps. My poorly connected frontal lobe is to blame—at least, that’s what Mom keeps telling me. But that doesn’t change the fact that I mess up more often than I’d like. If it weren’t for Mom’s medically derived empathy, I’d be more damaged than I am. Dad, however—well, he’s old school, and he believes every teenager needs a good lecture once in a while. Or, in my case, once a day. And they wonder why I’m anxious?
He clears his throat and with his authoritative voice booms, “If it were not for the Fenton men’s interest in—”
Mom’s quick footsteps come toward us from the rear hallway. Save me, Mom.
“Can we please try to pretend like we enjoy each other’s company this morning?” She whisks past us en route to our front entry, her lavender body spray offering a respite from Dad’s morning breath. “And you should be thankful she’s reading more than abbreviated slang and GIF quotes.”
He glares toward the hall. His forehead wrinkles. “GIF?
“Graphic animations, Dad. Like social media’s way of showing emotions.” I push back my chair so I can get up and grab my phone from the charger. And it’s empty. “Has anyone seen my phone?” Please tell me I didn’t leave it in my bag again. It’ll be dead for sure.
“Your purse would be my guess.” Mom picks it up from the bench and holds it out to me.
Even if my phone isn’t there, I’ll take the momentary delay from Dad’s lecture. I almost skip to the hall to retrieve my bag. I dig through the jumble of loose papers and cosmetics and pull out the lifeless phone. “Thank you.” I lean down to kiss Mom’s cheek while she applies lipstick in the front mirror. “Oh, and thanks for the purrfect wake-up call.”
“You can thank Woolie. It was all his idea. You forgot to put him in the basement again. He woke up everyone with his attempts to meow his way into your room.” She gives me a warning glance as she purses her lips at her reflection. “Be glad Tom’s alarm had already gone off; otherwise, he’d have thrown that poor cat out the window.”
“Sorry. I’ll try to remember to lock him up.” Odds are I’ll forget. Again. Which will cause my brother to ream me out next weekend, but I know that’s what she wants to hear.
I return to the kitchen, plug my cell into the communal charging station, and sit back down. The oven clock reads seven forty-three. Lots of time.
Dad’s mug is still stationed firmly on the table, so I fire my sweetest grin across at him. “Consider this bonding time, Dad. If I’d remembered to charge my cell, I wouldn’t even be reading The Ridge.”
He tries to avoid my tooth-and-gums expression, but I can tell the grizzly has become more polar, cold and quiet if kept at a distance. I pick up the paper and read out the headlines with exaggerated interest.
“Oh look, Mom,” I call out, “‘New Hospital Expansion is a Go.’” She murmurs from the hallway.
“And here ya go, Dad. ‘Tax Scam Uncovered through Local Tip.’”
He glares over the top of his paper with the classic Fenton family furrow of annoyance. My own forehead tenses in return. Just because he is an accountant doesn’t mean all financial news and happenings are intriguing to him, but come on. I’m trying to engage with him. He could meet me halfway at least.
Mom jets into the kitchen with an unnecessary level of focus on attaching her magnetic name tag to her scrubs. Despite her makeup, dark circles skirt her eyes–—a sure sign of another sleepless night and unresolved argument with Dad. Without looking toward the table, she picks up her lunch bag and travel mug from the counter, then storms out to the front entry. No wonder Dad is crab-tastic.
My parents enjoy a less than ideal marriage, but on most days they hide their riffs and resentment from Tom and me. Or maybe it was more hidden from Grams. Since her funeral this past summer, our home no longer rests on eggshells. She was our foundation and moral compass, and now their marital spats seem to occur frequently and without check. Mom’s usual plastered-on enthusiasm has turned into a shoulder hunched trudge. And Dad looks like part of him has disappeared. And judging from the odor wafting its way from him to me, it’s the part that cares about personal hygiene.
I continue to read with an artificial sweetness that rivals a preschooler’s plea for candy. “Oh, and this is big news for Ridgefield, ‘Fatal Fall from Southern Ridge.’” I stop. The content is anything but cheerful, so I read on silently instead. Teen girl loses life at Hawk Point Ridge. Slippery hiking trails and high winds noted. Identity withheld at family’s request.
Some promising small talk begins between my parents, but I no longer care. Fell from cliff’s edge at highest point. “George, when is your first appointment today?” “Uh, not until around ten,” Dad says. “Can you drive Thea to school?” Park gates were closed.
“She can walk.”
“I told her I could drive her last night, but I need to leave now.” No witnesses.
“Well, she can leave now if she wants a ride.”
“Thea, your father is too lazy to drive you, even though he has the time. If you want a ride, we need to leave now.” Substance abuse has not yet been ruled out.
“Lazy?” Dad pushes back his chair. “Who worked until—”
“Thea? ... Thea, do you hear me?”
Still under police investigation.
My phone starts to ding rapid-fire. The discourse between my parents heightens. A familiar tension fills my chest. The oatmeal churns in my stomach. Did one of them just say my name? The room is brighter. Too bright. I peer in the direction of the front window. Where is the window? The usual California shutters and collection of white cupboards blur. All I see are pewter knobs. I swing my head over to Dad and his dark housecoat. His silhouette is turned toward Mom, but his features are barely visible. What is happening? He is less than three feet from me. Why can’t I see his face? The haze thickens. Am I fainting? But there are no stars, no darkness—just light. Endless, blurring, white light.
I’m dying.
Oh please, no—I can’t be dying!
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. The air is sucked from my throat. I can’t breathe. My ears pound. Strained voices fade.
Wait. What is that? A sound, soft at first, grows like a strong wind or a plunging waterfall. It overpowers my racing heart.
Be still.
These words are all I hear in my mind. I try not to move, try not to think. Hot tears form behind my eyelids.
Be still.
And then it’s over. Morning chaos resumes. Mom calls my name. With the cuff of my sleeve, I wipe away any possible evidence of what I’ve just gone through. But Mom has noticed. The bulging alertness in her eyes gives her away. She will wait, hands clenched, studying me until I share an explanation. But explain what? I don’t know what happened. I couldn’t even begin to describe it.
She asked me something. About leaving? What time is it? Seven fifty. I should be brushing my teeth by now. The sight of my instant oats brings a new wave of nausea. My parents are frozen, as though in tableau, waiting for me to say something. Anything.
I push my bowl away. “I’ll walk.”
Wow. Inspired. I may have almost died. Now would be an ideal time to share this with the people who care about me most.
There is no time to talk. And going for a run is out of the question. But this mass of uncontrollable tension needs to be released. Fast.
I bolt up the stairs, despite the strain in Mom’s voice. Maybe she is just chastising me for not putting my dishes away. But whatever she says gets muffled. The weight of my body pushes my bedroom door shut.
Tears release without restraint, falling freely as I slide toward the hardwood floor. I lower my head to my gathered knees and tangle my fingers in my hair. Expertly, I trace the path to a small section of scalp, cleared of hair follicles from past anxiety-ridden moments. I pinch a strand coarser than the rest. Yank. Release. A small section of my mind clears. But the level of fog that just encompassed me was nothing like my usual panic attacks. I search for another.
Ruffling from the edge of my bed skirt, Woolie emerges just before I pull the next strand. He saunters over to my side, seemingly aware I’m at my breaking point. It’s as if he knows his gray-velvet fur holds one of the few trump cards over doing something more destructive to myself. My parents’ rising voices drift through the vent in the floor, accented by a bass line of heavy pacing and fists against table. The front door slams shut, leaving an uncomfortable silence, broken only by Woolie’s purrs and my ticking wall clock.
My gaze shifts to the carved antique clock claimed from Grams’ room. Her words float to the front of my memories. Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Her soothing voice could often stop my racing heart when I was monitoring this same clock in her room. She was always sharing phrases at key moments picked from her frayed Bible. Most of the verses fell on deaf ears, but this one stuck. Probably because of my need for punctuality.
I lunge to my feet. I’m going to be late. Nothing like an unhealthy obsession with time to overpower the stellar habit of stress-induced hair pulling. The thought of being late makes my palms sweat. The awkward line-up at the office to explain my reason to a host of eavesdroppers. Slinking into class while everyone stares, and then needing to wait after class to figure out what I missed. Each hypothetical nightmare urges me to hurry on my invention of palm antiperspirant.
If I hustle, I can get rid of my jungle mouth, cover up some of my facial fiends—what I like to call my acne—and still grab a tea before school. Routine and caffeine, that’s what I need. Hopefully, it will clear my mind enough to arrive without any further freak-outs. I gather my math textbook and laptop from my desk and head for the washroom.
The shower is running in my parents’ bathroom. At least I can leave without any further encounters with Dad. The sharp mint of my toothpaste soothes me, and I wipe the last of my tears away with my free hand.
Wait. That sound. It is almost like the one I heard in the kitchen.
Like a gentle waterfall, but more alive.
It’s just the shower, Thea.
I study myself in the mirror, half expecting my reflection to fade into a blur. Nope. There I am in perfect, flawed clarity. I scrunch my dark curls to calm the frizz and frown at the unkempt state of my thick eyebrows.
The rusted squeak of facets closing pierces through my parents’ closed door. No more time for primping if I want to make a Dad-free getaway. I switch off the light and stare at my darkened reflection, hoping to see something unusual. If not for Dad’s pasty contribution to my gene pool, I would fade into the background. I must have low iron, or maybe I’m not getting enough sleep. Nothing serious, I tell myself. You’re a rational human being who will figure this out.
But the quiver that grows in my stomach from fear, anxiety, or maybe intuition tells me it wasn’t nothing. This is more than just some nutritional deficiency. This is just the beginning.
Of what? I wish I knew.

Order Now!

<< Go Back